Modernizing Dredging Procurement: Building on American Capacity and Competition
America’s ports and waterways depend on a strong partnership between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the domestic dredging industry. That partnership supports commercial navigation, military readiness, energy exports, coastal protection, and the movement of goods throughout the country.
The Dredging Contractors of America (DCA) supports the Corps’ goals of improving project delivery, coordinating schedules, reducing unnecessary costs, and maintaining reliable navigation channels.
As the Corps develops its Dredging Evolution for Enterprise Production (DEEP) initiative and proposed Enterprise Dredging Delivery Center (EDDC), decisions about project groupings, competition, and contractor participation will shape the American dredging industrial base for years.
DCA has addressed these issues with Corps leadership through meetings and written comments. Our recommendations seek to make modernization successful while preserving the companies, equipment, skilled workers, and competitive markets that make the navigation mission possible.
America Has a Capable and Expanding Dredging Fleet
America’s domestic dredging industry has a capable, diverse, and expanding fleet. Making full use of that capacity requires coordinated project schedules, appropriate work windows, and procurement strategies that preserve competition.
American dredging companies have undertaken a multiyear recapitalization program of approximately $3 billion in new dredges, supporting vessels, and associated equipment. These investments span hopper, cutter-suction, and mechanical dredging capabilities and support American shipyards, mariners, and skilled trades.
New vessels are adding capacity and improving production, fuel efficiency, safety, and environmental performance. Over the past year alone, Curtin Maritime’s DB Catalina, a hybrid-powered clamshell dredge, and Manson Construction’s Frederick Paup, the largest self-propelled hopper dredge ever built in the United States, have entered service. The Dutra Group is continuing that investment with the Adele, a new 10,464-cubic-yard trailing suction hopper dredge under construction at Eastern Shipbuilding Group in Florida.
The relevant procurement question is whether suitable equipment can reach a particular project within its required operating period. That depends on dredge type, material, channel dimensions, placement requirements, environmental restrictions, mobilization, and competing schedules.
Narrow work windows or overlapping procurement schedules can create project-specific availability problems even when capable equipment exists. Those conditions should be examined on their own facts rather than treated as evidence of a nationwide vessel-capacity shortage.
Expand Productive Workdays and Improve Existing Practices
The Corps should begin with an enterprise-wide review of how to expand the number of days available for dredging. In some districts, guidelines and recommendations have effectively become mandatory work windows, even where restrictions are not required by statute or regulation. It’s regulation creep that negatively impacts the navigation mission and should be scrapped as part the Administration’s aim to reduce regulatory burdens.
DCA supports reviewing the legal and scientific basis for these restrictions. Legitimate environmental protections should remain effective, while restrictions unsupported by current project-specific evidence should be reconsidered.
When multiple projects must be performed during the same narrow period, schedules become compressed. Expanding appropriate work periods would improve fleet utilization, reduce scheduling pressure, and allow more dredging to be completed.
Other practical improvements include accurate quantity estimates, current surveys, appropriate paid overdepth, timely processing of surveys and payment quantities, and consistent administration of safety requirements.
Cross-district coordination can also improve responsiveness. Where contract requirements permit, temporarily releasing equipment that is ahead of schedule could help address urgent shoaling elsewhere. These measures directly affect production and cost and deserve attention alongside procurement reform.
Distinguish Administrative Savings From Dredging Savings
The dredging industry supports reducing unnecessary government paperwork and making better use of Corps personnel. However, savings within government administration and savings in the actual performance of dredging are separate outcomes. Each should be measured.
Issuing fewer solicitations or administering fewer contracts may reduce internal workload. The Corps should explain whether those changes reduce expenditures, free personnel for other responsibilities, or shorten procurement timelines. Those benefits do not, by themselves, establish that dredging will cost less or that more material will be removed from federal navigation channels.
Dredging costs depend on equipment, crews, fuel, material characteristics, placement requirements, mobilization, work windows, and project conditions. Competition among qualified contractors also helps determine the price the government pays.
A larger procurement package could reduce administrative effort while increasing dredging prices if fewer companies can compete directly or bonding requirements exclude otherwise capable contractors. Carefully coordinated, compatible projects may instead reduce mobilization costs and improve equipment utilization.
The Corps should evaluate these effects separately, identify the source of any claimed savings, and compare equivalent dredging requirements and navigation outcomes. Administrative simplification should strengthen the competitive delivery of dredging services.
Competition Already Delivers Substantial Taxpayer Value
The annual U.S. Dredging Report prepared by Michael Gerhardt, together with DCA’s published assessments, documents a highly competitive domestic industry delivering substantial taxpayer value.
The FY2024 report identified 56 companies receiving Corps dredging awards, including 20 large businesses and 36 small businesses. Of 136 projects analyzed, 88 were awarded below the government estimate and 123, approximately 90 percent, below the Government Estimated Awardable Range, or GEAR. DCA’s published assessment reported nearly $829 million in estimated taxpayer savings.
The FY2025 results reinforced that record. Unrestricted projects attracted an average of three bidders. DCA’s assessment reported $773 million in savings, with 63 percent of projects awarded below the government estimate and 91 percent below GEAR.
These reported savings compare industry bids and awards with government estimating benchmarks. They provide an important baseline for evaluating procurement changes.
Modernization should preserve the direct competition that has helped produce these results while generating additional efficiencies.
Maintain Continuity Through Leadership Transitions
Since DEEP was introduced at the National Dredge Meeting in June 2026, leadership responsibilities have changed at Army Civil Works and Corps headquarters. Adam Telle, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works when the initiative began, is now Acting Secretary of the Army. D. Lee Forsgren is now performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. At Corps headquarters, Brigadier General Geoffrey R. Van Epps is serving in an acting capacity in the civil works and emergency operations leadership role that is held by Major General Jason E. Kelly. MG Kelly is on a temporary assignment.
DCA appreciates the responsibilities these leaders have assumed and looks forward to continuing a constructive partnership. As this initiative moves through these transitions, continuity in reviewing industry comments, outstanding questions, and proposed alternatives is important. The acquisition strategies should reflect the full record of engagement developed since June.
Coordinate Compatible Projects and Preserve Competition
Private industry recognizes that properly matched project groupings can improve scheduling and reduce repeated mobilization and demobilization costs. Earlier visibility into upcoming work helps companies plan vessel deployments, retain crews, schedule maintenance, and evaluate investment.
The Corps has taken constructive steps by publishing proposed evaluation criteria, revising certain project groupings, and separating a portion of the Texas work into a proposed small-business set-aside. These changes demonstrate the value of continued engagement.
Project groupings must also reflect how dredging is performed. Hopper, cutter-suction, and mechanical dredges provide distinct capabilities. A project described broadly as hopper dredging may require pipelines, boosters, mechanical equipment, beach crews, or other specialized capabilities.
The Corps should identify the reaches, quantities, placement requirements, and activities intended for each equipment type. It should explain whether a particular dredge type is required or whether alternative methods can satisfy the project’s needs.
Acquisition planning should include cutter-suction and mechanical dredging companies whenever their capabilities are implicated. Work traditionally performed by clamshell dredges should remain clearly identified and accessible to qualified mechanical dredging companies.
DCA recommends smaller groupings of two or three compatible projects where coordinated procurement offers a demonstrable benefit. These groupings would allow the Corps to test efficiencies while preserving opportunities for qualified companies to compete directly as prime contractors.
When recurring projects are consolidated under one prime, other companies may become dependent on a competitor for access to work they previously pursued independently. The Corps should weigh administrative efficiencies against the potential loss of direct competition and the bonding barriers created by larger packages.
Use a Measurable Pilot and Protect the Navigation Mission
A pilot should be appropriately sized to test a concept, identify problems, and measure results before broader implementation.
Evaluation should compare the pilot with established procurement methods, considering total cost, dredged quantities, channel availability, mobilization, contractor participation, and small-business prime opportunities. Cost comparisons should account for differences in material, depth, placement distance, environmental requirements, and the scope delivered.
The Corps should publish implementation guidance explaining the acquisition process, evaluation criteria, contractor responsibilities, and measures of success. Solicitation provisions should be tailored to maintenance dredging.
A contingency procurement plan is also essential. If a pilot is delayed, protested, revised, or cancelled, the Corps must retain a practical means of procuring maintenance work without allowing channel conditions to deteriorate.
DCA stands ready to work with Corps leadership to advance practical procurement improvements. Success should be measured by reliable navigation, more productive dredging days, and demonstrated taxpayer value. By building on the capacity and competition already present in the American dredging industry, the Corps can improve delivery while sustaining the companies, skilled workers, and private investment essential to the nation’s maritime future.